For those who are curious, there’s now an English-language version of the brochure for the conference I’m attending next week in Istanbul, Turkey. You can download the PDF here. (The brochure also gives some background on previous conferences in this series.) My keynote address at this conference for business leaders is entitled “The Science-Fiction Mindset […]

We just lost one of the big-four US science fiction and fantasy magazines: Realms of Fantasy, edited by Shawna McCarthy, is closing down. SF Scope (which more and more these days is first with breaking news) has the scoop. Meanwhile, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction recently switched from 11 issues a year to […]

The opening of an email I just received: Dear Editor: I am seeking the publication of my young adult novel, TITLE, complete at 168,000 words. My reply: You’ll never get anywhere like this. My guidelines say no YA, and nothing over 100,000 words — I didn’t read anything beyond that in your letter. I wish […]

This Tuesday, January 26 — tomorrow, as I write this — I’ll be featured not once but twice on Canada’s Vision TV. At 10:00 p.m. Eastern time / 7:00 p.m. Pacific, the half-hour documentary Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?, heavily featuring Rob, airs as the debut episode of the series I Prophesy. And, immediately following, at 10:30 […]

My friend Virginia O’Dine just drew this to my attenion: Amazon.com has notified its publisher and author clients that it plans to cease offering e-books in the Microsoft Reader and Adobe e-book formats. They’re only going to be selling Kindle ebooks (for the hardware device they make) and Mobipocket — and Amazon.com owns Mobipocket. Man, […]

An academic on a listserver I read just asked about bibliographies in SF&F novels. My reply: I sometimes include a bibliography. The one from my novel Hominids (Hugo winner, 2003; Tor Books) is online here. And the one from my novel Mindscan (John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner, 2006; Tor Books) is online here. But […]

PREAMBLE WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and […]

Hey, didja know that Gordon Jump — Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson himself from WKRP in Cincinnati — was in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes? He plays the auctioneer who sells Roddy McDowall’s Caesar to Governor Breck, saying: Lot eight: one male chimpanzee in early prime and perfect physical condition. Under observation, appeared so […]

Eric McMillan, the Chair of Skeptics Canada, reports: With great sorrow, we report that Henry Gordon has passed away. Henry was a professional magician, journalist, book author, and leading Canadian skeptic. He was a founder and chair of the Ontario Skeptics, a precursor to Skeptics Canada, for which he remained chair emeritus and a respected […]

I mentioned K.A. Bedford’s Time Machines Reapired While-U-Wait in this post. The book has just won Australia’s Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year — congratulations, Adrian! And congratulations to Brian Hades of Calgary’s EDGE, which published the book. Woot! This is truly a case of nice guys finishing first! The full […]

Hey, New York Times! My friend Stephen Kotowych points out that this article in the Sunday, January 25, 2009, New York Times [but online since yesterday] says, “Back in 1996, [Brad] Meltzer built what was arguably the first author Web site for his first novel …” Poppycock, says I! My website has been online since Wednesday, […]

I’m pleased to see that my eBay feedback score just passed 400, with 100% positive ratings, and that my detailed ratings (Item as described; Communication; Shipping time; and Shipping and handling charges) are all five stars. Carolyn deserves most of the credit, as she runs our eBay store, selling signed copies of my books. The […]

… is in the above image of Playmates’ toy version coming in May (click the picture for a larger version). More info at TrekMovie.com, including close-ups of the toy phaser, communicator, and tricorder, also coming in May. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Papers, please! Today’s National Post — a Canadian daily newspaper — has a brief interview with me (formatted horribly in the online edition, I must say) in the travel section. You can read it online (at least for a while) here. In theory, the hardcopy edition also has a passport-style photo of me — but […]

As I said here, I like that iPod commercial with Feist’s song “1 2 3 4.” And if you like that commercial, too, you’ll love this spoof of it from Mad TV. (The original ad is here.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I’ve now finished 18 novels, and, as of yesterday, have finished editing my fourth anthology, and I have three collections (including one, Relativity, that’s mostly nonfiction). That’s a total of 25 books. Here are the 20 that are all my own fiction, totaling about 1.8 million words: It’s a start. :) The Robert J. Sawyer […]

Well, I’ve been saying for a while that I wouldn’t buy a Blu-ray disc player until the remastered original Star Trek was available in that format. To coincide with the release of the new J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie, Season One of The Original Series is coming to Blu-ray in May 2009. Reports are that […]

Woot! Just received from Tor a copy of the 2nd trade-paperback edition of my novel Frameshift. Frameshift was originally published in hardcover in 1997. It was (a) my first-ever bookstore hardcover, and (b) my first title for Tor Books. It is also one of my personal favourites of my books. It had a good life […]

This evening I delivered the manuscript for the anthology Distant Early Warnings: Canada’s Best Science Fiction, edited by me, to be published by Red Deer Press under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint this summer. Included are stories by Hugo Award winners Spider Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, and Robert Charles Wilson, Hugo nominees Paddy Forde, […]

Sent to people on my email update list this evening; if you’d like to be added to the list, send me a note: sawyer@sfwriter.com News from Science Fiction Writer Robert J. Sawyer * ABC filming pilot based on FLASH FORWARD* Rob hosts Canadian TV series: debuts TUESDAY* New novel WAKE coming in April* WAKE Canadian […]

Okay, I confess I bought a copy of The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! for three resaons. First, I was curious about what a new Canadian small press might be up to. Second, my friend Virginia O’Dine designed the cover. And third the author is Nina Munteanu, whom I’ve always enjoyed running into at […]

A friend of mine was wondering aloud recently if his anthology — edited by Canadians, but with stories by Canadians, Americans, and Brits — was eligible for the Aurora Award, or whether the administrators might disqualify it for being “insufficiently Canadian.” My response: Go ahead and nominate your book. The Aurora administrators don’t routinely overrule […]

I was interviewed today on CBC Radio One’s afternoon show The Point with Aamer Haleen about my upcoming gig as Writer-in-Residence at the Canadian Light Source. The interview is now online. Go here, select “Part 2,” and I come on at the 00:16:13 mark (move the little slider to skip ahead). The Robert J. Sawyer […]

The 17-part TV series Supernatural Investigator, which I’m hosting for Canada’s Vision TV, premieres THIS COMING TUESDAY, January 27, 2009. You can watch the promo for the show online right here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I have very fond memories of BookExpo Canada, the annual publishing tradeshow in Toronto. In the summer of 1982, I worked at Bakka, Toronto’s SF specialty store. It was a summer job — I’d just graduated from Ryerson with my degree in Radio and Television Arts, and I had a job back at Ryerson starting […]

So, I often go days without getting phone calls — I mean, voice is so last millennium. But yesterday and today, I’ve been recording audio: portions of Wake that I’m reading for Audible.com, plus me reading the entire first chapter myself to put on my website at sfwriter.com. And the damn phone has just not […]

Lessse, got up nice and early … but what the heck did I accomplish? Well, I wrote 1,700 words of answers for a by-email interview for a Turkish national news agency (as a lead up to my keynote address in Istanbul on February 2). I wrote 900 words of answers for a by-email interview by […]